Gisele:Malibu by Mario Testino

Gisele: Malibu by Mario Testino captures one of the world’s most recognizable fashion models overlooking the beach on Malibu.

Listed in Time magazine as the top fashion and celebrity photographer, Mario Testino spearheaded the image development of several high profile fashion companies including Dolce & Gabanna, Michael Kors, and Tom Ford. In this series of portraits, Testino takes a holistic approach to capturing the woman behind the fashion.

Renowned photographer Mario Testino shot the images in April of 2002 on a Malibu beach. “Only Mario could make me take those pictures,” says Bündchen. “He was the first photographer that shot me when I started … ” Gisele Bündchen commands the shock value of a close encounter with a giraffe: you can hardly believe an earthly creature is built this way. Everything about her is so elongated and slender—those impossibly attenuated limbs! the swanlike neck!—that she seems almost preposterous, like a cartoon figure. Nearly six feet tall by the age of 13, she spent her childhood being teased by classmates who called her Olive Oyl.

When you have five minutes with Gisele Bündchen, the highest earning model in the world with more than 600 magazine covers to her name and the kind of look and personality that the world seemingly can’t get enough of, how do you capture her level of perfection? It is to this very question that Mario Testino provides the perfect answer using his amazing skill with the camera and his curiosity to capture and display the smallest details in the most beautiful manner imaginable.